“Practice of the Stoning is in Our Laws: Interview with Shirin Ebadi”

In this interview with Nobel Prize Winner, Shirin Ebadi discusses stoning from both a human rights and religious point of view. With regards to human rights, she points out the hypocrisy in Iranian law in that the crime of homicide is legally less severe than the crime of adultery. She also explains that most religious leaders believe there are two kinds of Islamic Laws: constitutional laws and laws that are endorsed. Stoning is one of the endorsement laws, meaning that fourteen century ago stoning was a common punishment for adultery and Islam also endorsed it. Another way of looking at it is that in many Muslem countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia [as of 2007], Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, and many others death by stoning have not implemented stoning in their penal codes.